368 Kant: A Biography
character "for which we are responsible" does not have an origin in time.^149
It must therefore have a beginning in reason and must be rationally expli¬
cable. Character is identical to Denkungsart.^150
Character is not identical to Gesinnung.: 3^1 The notion of Gesinnung adds
nothing new to Kant's discussion of particular moral agents. When he uses
the term in this context, he refers to the motivation, or the motivations,
expressed in our maxims. Thus Kant often speaks of "good Gesinnungen
and maxims" or of "principles and Gesinnungen," or he refers to "the max¬
ims," adding in brackets, "Gesinnungen."^152 In those passages he seems
to identify Gesinnungen as the motivational aspect of maxims. Gesinnungen
refer to what is "subjective" in the "subjective principles of volition." The
singular "Gesinnung''' is then nothing more than a way of talking about the
motivation expressed in the collectivity of our maxims. It is in this way that
Gesinnung is "the internal principle of maxims" that one has adopted.^153
When Kant speaks of Gesinnung in the Religion as the "first subjective
ground of the adoption of maxims," he seems to be talking about some¬
thing else.^154 He is talking about something that is "to us inscrutable,"
namely, the "intelligible ground of the heart (the ground of all powers of
all the maxims of the power of choice)."^15 ' Kant's assertion that having
a good or evil Gesinnung is the "first subjective ground of the adoption of
maxims," and that it is both an "innate characteristic we have by nature"
and also "adopted by free will," seems troubling, however.^156 Does this
mean that we are "choosing ourselves" in some fundamentally Sartrean
sense, that we ourselves freely adopt our own fundamental maxim?
This would certainly create problems. Since Gesinnung is "not acquired
in time," this raises the specter of "noumenal choice."^157 Still, Kant had in
mind neither the notion of "choosing ourselves" nor the notion of a "fun¬
damental maxim."^158 Gesinnung, for Kant, is inscrutable. It is "supersen¬
sible" {übersinnlich)}^59 It is a characteristic that a human being has, not qua
individual, but qua being a member of the human species. It is a universal
characteristic of all human beings, which shows that "by his maxims he
expresses at the same time the character of his species."^160 So it is pre¬
cisely not a "choosing of ourselves." It is an expression of our "fallenness."
This is what Kant was concerned with in his essay on a "Conjectural Be¬
ginning of the Human Race." Reason, when it begins to function, comes
"into conflict with animality in all its strength," and therefore evils nec¬
essarily ensue. This is the necessary first step for rational beings like us —
or so Kant seems to believe. "From the moral point of view, therefore, the
first step... was a fall, and from the physical point of view, this fall was a